[Beginner non-staff activity] 日常の日記

typo of スウェーデン?

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Hey i hope you dont mind i correct some things :smile:

子犬 means Puppy (Child+Dog) and not Big Dog, and for saying something is “too much” you use すぎる, so “Canadian winters are too long” would be カナダの冬は長すぎる (you remove the い from ながい and add すぎる). Theres some more conjugation to it but thats just for your example ^^

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Oh by all means, correct me on everything!

:speech_balloon: “Sweden has cold winters like Canada”

:speech_balloon: “Works for a Swedish company”

:speech_balloon: “I live in Morocco and I am Swedish/American. I have two kids and I am medical researcher. Finally, I like to eat stuff such as octopus dumplings, onigiri, ramen etc… Pleased to meet you.”

I’m sometimes confused about your sentence construction. I don’t mean that you’re wrong of course, just that I’m not used to it since I’m still starting out.

For example, I think sentence could have been ambiguous:

“ 子供が二人いる医学の研究者です”

Judging from your picture, your kids are too young to be medical researchers but if you were older it’d be possible for both of your kids to be medical researchers. Unlikely but not impossible, am I right?

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By the way, I recommend you using Yomichan browser extension. You just press “shift” and hover your mouse on top of the words or kanjis and get instant translation. You can add several dictionaries so you can add french one as well :slight_smile:

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(I’m using an iPad, I don’t think I can use this)

But ‘child/children’ can mean a son or daughter in Japanese as well or does it imply that the 子供 are of young age? I mean, technically someone’s child can be of any age can’t it?

Yes, definition #1 of 子ども in most dictionaries is “one’s own sons and daughters” (自分の得た息子や娘). Definition #2 is “small / young children” ( 小児。児童).

There are more definitions as well, but they’re not relevant to this.

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“ 子供が二人いる医学の研究者です”
I surmise that the いる prevents the sentence from being interpreted as the children being medical researchers or would it be still possible?

Also, I think the active construction involves を:犬を好く, unlike 好き, which usually is used with が.

Actually, because it’s a question, は makes more sense than が. が would be appropriate for an affirmative statement (e.g. ‘I like strawberries’). は, on the other hand, indicates the context and puts emphasis on what comes after it: ‘on the topic of garlic toast, do you like it?’ Since the important thing here is the question (‘do you like it or not?’), the particle used should be は.

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@Zizka

##6月3日:

毎日午前5時30分に起きります。三時間に日本語を勉強します。

Two things:

(1) - 起きります is an incorrect verb conjugation. The correct way to conjugate this verb to the ます form is 起きます. Your IME should have indirectly informed you this was incorrect by not allowing you to convert the hiragana to the kanji you intended.

(2) - You start off using arabic numerals with time in the first sentence, but then you use kanji in the next sentence: 三時間. I feel this should be consistent, even though you’re saying you “study for 3 hours” and not “study at 3 o’clock”, and generally speaking, arabic numerals are more common (i.e. 3時間).

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Thank you, I’ve made the necessary corrections in the first message.

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In response to 6月3日:

ええ、5時30分は早いだ。7時に起きて、コーヒーを作って、犬と歩く。

(Corrections welcome. I am forcing myself to try to use grammar, because I can’t get it to stick just by reading Tae Kim or textbooks in the past).

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Can’t use だ after an い-adjective. You can either just leave it off and end the sentence with 早い, or change だ into です. Based on the structure of the rest of your sentence, it makes the most sense to leave it off. :slight_smile:

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That’s why I created the thread. I find that reading gives 5% understanding at most (maybe less). Using it allows me to integrate it.

:speech_balloon: “5:30 is early. I get up at 7, make coffee and walk the dog”

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Thanks! The only semester I had of Japanese was very effective in teaching hiragana/katakana and some basic grammar, but we never used anything other than masu-form / desu, so I forget that rule no matter how many times I read it (because I’m just writing w/ desu in my head and replacing it with da for simple sentences). :slight_smile:

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子供が二人いる医学の研究者です, in English it would best translate to “I am a medical researcher with two kids” (A “has two kids -medical researcher”). Same as first sentence, "I am a “living in Morocco Swedish-American” and another example いつもタバコを吸う人が好きじゃない .

The paragraph is is still a bit weird because I edited it a bit and forgot to adjust the rest :crazy_face: I should have started with the second sentence and then just added スェーデン人とアメリカ人ですけどいまモロッコに住んでいなす。The way I wrote it makes it a bit heavy to read and the “flow” is a bit unnatural.

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Ahh, I see. That makes sense. Thanks for shedding light on that one!

“You can make a lot of snowmen, right?”

Or perhaps more appropriate given the よね at the end:
“I bet you can make a lot of snowmen, eh?”

作れる being the potential conjugation for 作る

カナダの冬は長すぎる

子供でも大人でも雪だるまを作るのはいつも楽しい。(I don’t if this actually means what I want to say or not lol)
zizkaさんはどの季節が一番好きですか?
きっとびっくりじゃないけど、私が一番好きなのは冬だ。

(I didn’t say this before, but of course, if someone wants to correct me feel free to do it. Any correction will be greatly appreciated)

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I have to admit: I don’t understand what the したがって means here. I can tell from context that you meant ‘I’m an adult, so I don’t make snowmen’ or something similar.

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Oh yeah that. Well I have this philosophy where I try to use new words to expand my vocabulary. So I figured I would use しがって.

したがって 【従って】

conjunction, word usually written using kana alone
ⓐ therefore, consequently, accordingly (see also: にしたがって)

Is it inaccurate in this context?

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:speech_balloon: “Which seasons do you prefer?”

:writing_hand:どの: which…
:writing_hand:季節: 【きせつ】season;

《夏が一番すきですなので雪がありません!!》

Oh… like that. I’m not sure because I haven’t used the word like that before. For that matter, while I know it’s valid, I think I’ve never heard or seen it used that way. I just know it’s from the verb that means ‘to follow’. I think you should have put a 。after です. Then it would be fine. (Probably, because I don’t know if there are special nuances when using it as ‘therefore’. My dictionaries only provide two examples, but they seem similar enough to your sentence.)

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